not. Only last month one of the Barings cabled----"

I'll admit my next stab at bein' sociable was kind of feeble. In front
of the desk is a group of three gents, one of 'em not over fifty or so;
but when I edges up close enough to hear what the debate is about, I
finds it has something to do with a scheme for revivin' Italian opera in
Boston, and I backs off so sudden I almost bumps into a hook-beaked old
dame who is waddlin' up to the letter-box.

"Sorry," says I. "I should have honked."

She just glares at me, and if I hadn't side-stepped prompt she might
have sunk that parrot bill into my shoulder.

After that I sidles into a corner where I couldn't be hit from behind,
and tries to dope out the cause of all this hostility. Did they take me
for a German spy or what? Or was this really an old folks' home
masqueradin' as a hotel, with Vee and me breakin' in under false
pretenses?

So far as I could see, the inmates was friendly enough with each other.
The old girls sat around in the office and parlors, chattin' over their
knittin' and crochet. The old boys paired off mostly, though some of
them only read or played solitaire. A few people went out wrapped up in
expensive furs and was loaded into sleighs. The others waved good-by to
'em. But I might have been built out of window-glass. They didn't act
as though I was visible.

"Huh!" thinks I. "I'll bet they take notice of Vee when she comes down."

If I'd put anything up on that proposition I'd owed myself money. They
couldn't see her any more'n they could me. When we went out for another
walk nobody even looked after us. I didn't say anything then, but I kept
thinkin'. And all that evenin' we sat around amongst 'em without bein'
disturbed.

About eight o'clock an orchestra shows up and cuts loose with music in
the ball-room, mostly classic stuff like the "Spring Song" and handfuls
plucked from "Aida." We slips in and listens. Then the leader gets his
eye on us and turns on a fox-trot.

"Looks like they was waitin' for us to start something," says I.
"Let's."

We'd gone around three or four times when Vee balks. About twenty-five
old ladies, with a sprinklin' of white-whiskered old codgers, had filed
in and was watchin' us solemn and critical from the side-lines. Some was
squintin' disapprovin' through their lorgnettes, and I noticed a few
whisperin' to each other. Vee quits right in the middle of a reverse.

"Do they think we are giving an exhibition?" she